LETTERS: Knotweed under fire

Bryant Park, a beautiful, well-used park, is located immediately to the east of our condo complex and is infested by knotweed.

Bryant Park is on City of White Rock property and was developed 10 years ago by the city with money – about $35,000 – provided by local Rotarians. The planning and planting was completed by the city with no input by Rotary. Currently, Rotarians have an agreement with the City of White Rock to provide certain maintenance in the park, with the city cutting the grass and providing plants and bulbs.

Knotweed was included in the planting at that time and is now of great concern to the strata corporation and the residents of White Rock Square. Our underground parking is located within inches of the knotweed, and, as your article accurately states, knotweed is “capable of upheaving concrete, cracking foundations.”

The reason for our concern is obvious. The City of White Rock has taken measures to eradicate the problem over the past year, but the knotweed is thriving and expanding.

I urge White Rock council to take action to eradicate the knotweed problem before its responsible for damage and very expensive repairs.

Donald E. Boyce, White Rock

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No offence to Surrey resident Mardie Wolsey or his concerns, but I find that one can’t help to side, at least to some degree, with the much-maligned knotweed in its battle against the ever-spreading concrete, along with all those other man-made menaces and blights that have been put in its way as it merely struggles to survive.

In fact, I liken it to Mother Nature’s fighting back against all those man-made “invasive” species – being the very same concrete, pavement etc. we pour so liberally over Her as we go about building our 4,000-sq.-foot houses, our 12-storey-plus towers, and both our roads and parking lots.

At the moment, I, like the “wicked” knotweed, find myself in a battle, alas but only with my strata council, in an attempt to save two healthy gum trees whose roots may, or may not be “encroaching” on our building’s foundation.

Perhaps, we should be warning both Metro Vancouver and the City of Surrey that ‘progress’ at any cost is not a good thing. After all, we can’t really just keep on building and building and not expect Mother Nature to occasionally fight back, can we?

Yes I am getting on, but I do realize that the ’60s are long gone, but to Joni’s chagrin, here we are ‘still’ paving over our paradise with parking lots, roads and towers that stretch forever upward.

So, yeah, I’m cheering a bit for Mother Nature along with that “wicked” knotweed, but only with the hope that it will somehow make us all stop and think of the dangers we bring upon ourselves by not showing respect for Her.